HUMOR October 2023
Swifties, In Law
Written by John G. Browning
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it’s Taylor Swift’s world and we just live in it. She recently finished the U.S. leg of her 146-show, five-continent “Eras” tour that some experts estimate will gross $1.4 billion and set the record for highest grossing tour ever. Taylor Swift has boosted economies everywhere; in Philadelphia, the Federal Reserve credited the city’s highest month of hotel revenue in the post-COVID-19 era to “an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city.” World leaders like Canada’s Justin Trudeau have pleaded online with her to add concert dates in their countries. And her tour has been literally earth-shaking: in Seattle the dancing of joyous concertgoers produced the “Swift Quake,” a seismic effect equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. People from all walks of life, from pre-teen girls to NFL quarterbacks, make up the “Swiftie” fanbase.
Apparently, that includes a number of judges, who have no qualms about proudly flying their Taylor Swift flag. Take U.S. District Court Judge Gail Standish, of California, for example. In 2015, Judge Standish presided over a copyright infringement suit brought against the pop star by musician Jessie Braham. Braham claimed that 92% of Swift’s hit song “Shake It Off” came from his song “Haters Gone Hate.” As Swifties know, her song has the lyrics “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate/And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake.”
Judge Standish dismissed Braham’s case, but cheekily included lyrics from Taylor Swift songs throughout her opinion. She wrote, “At present, the Court is not saying that Braham can never, ever, ever get his case back in court. But, for now, we have got problems, and the Court is not sure Braham can solve them.” Judge Standish continued as the plaintiff’s $42 million suit circled around the drain:
As currently drafted, the Complaint has a blank space—one that requires Braham to do more than write his name. And, upon consideration of the Court’s explanation . . . Braham may discover that mere pleading BandAids will not fix the bullet holes in his case. At least for the moment, Defendants have shaken off this lawsuit.
Look what you made me do, judge. Judge Standish is hardly alone. In
2021, Judge Joshua Wolson, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania, channeled his inner Swiftie in a free speech
lawsuit. In a case filed by Crash Proof Retirement, LLC, a
retirement-planning consulting business, against Paul Price, a former
stockbroker who wrote about Crash Proof Retirement, Judge Wolson quoted
“Shake It Off.” He wrote:
If free speech means anything, it means that you do not get to sue people because you don’t like their opinion of you. In the immortal words of Taylor Swift, although “haters gonna hate, hate, hate . . . ,” sometimes you just have to “shake it off.” “Shake it off,” however, Crash Proof Retirement did not. Instead, it sued Paul M. Price . . .
Holding that Price’s article was neither commercial speech nor did it promote or advertise a product, Judge Wolson dismissed Crash Proof’s case because Price was merely voicing an opinion.
Even our U.S. Supreme Court justices seem to be aware that an understanding of all things Taylor Swift is the key to modern jurisprudence. During a 2021 oral argument in a case involving whether two Georgia students could sue their college for nominal damages, multiple justices like Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Justice Neil Gorsuch analogized the situation to Taylor Swift’s lawsuit against a Denver radio host she said had groped her. Swift famously sought (and won) $1 in nominal damages, a figure that Justice Kagan said “is going to represent something both to me and to the world of women who have experienced what I’ve experienced.”
The ranks of “Swiftie jurists” are not just limited to American borders, either. Justice Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea, of Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, is an unabashed fan who has shared his affection for the singer and her music in multiple writings and social media posts. Justice Zaldívar even authored an op-ed in the newspaper Milenio titled “This is Why I Like Taylor Swift.” Calling Swift “a cry of rebellion, an example of intellectual honesty, and a cascade of dreams of all colors and sounds,” Justice Zaldívar wrote that her “lyrics remind us that it’s OK to be vulnerable, to be different, to make mistakes, and to love oneself fully.”
Our nation’s lawmakers are also well-versed in Taylor Swift discography. When the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary convened to question executives from ticketing giant Live Nation over its business practices regarding ticket sales for the “Eras” tour, there was no shortage of bad blood (see what I did there?). Senators like Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, and Mike Lee, of Utah, produced some cringeworthy Swift references, with Lee calling the situation a “nightmare dressed like a daydream.”
Senators, don’t quit your day jobs. As Taylor Swift herself might say, “This is why we can’t have nice things.” TBJ
JOHN G. BROWNING
is a former justice of the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas. He is a past
chair of the State Bar of Texas Computer & Technology Section. The
author of five books and numerous articles on social media and the law,
Browning is a nationally recognized thought leader in technology and the
law.
